Really--where have I been?

I didn’t even look at my previous blog date before starting this one. My best guess is that I haven’t blogged in well over two months.

As always, I never want to leave the punchline until the end of the blog. I’m not a cliffhanger girl at all. Everything is good…really good actually…well, save for a potentially year-changing injury.

Ok maybe I do enjoy the occasional cliffhanger from time to time.

So here’s what we’ve had going on in the past few months—

• We had a baby celebrate her first birthday. My gorgeous little ginger baby turned 1 on April 14th.
• I got myself a part-time job.
• I had a husband watching the news with extreme jealousy that his friends were flying a real combat mission on the actual aircraft he’s been flying for the last 10-ish years.

Numbers 2 and 3 are very much related.

So as you all know, we are apparently in a war (I guess? I can't keep up with the whiplash of what is or isn't happening) with Iran. I have a husband who, despite having a wife who will absolutely kill him a second time if he gets hurt in a war, feels extremely left out because he hasn’t gotten the call to participate yet.

I’m not even sure how long ago it was now, but there was a very high-profile mission within Iran to rescue two Air Force pilots who had been shot down. Again, I never know how much I can say about military stuff, but it’s safe to say that Bubs’ aircraft was a key part of that rescue mission. He apparently knew several of the pilots and crew members personally who were involved, and for several days I watched him rock in his seat while watching the news, almost catatonically repeating:

“I should be there. I should be there.”

I was livid. Like beyond pissed. And he and I had one of those fights that lasts all night—where you say everything and nothing at the same time, and a few hours in you don’t even remember what you’re technically fighting about anymore.

But to his credit, at one point he said:

“Dani…you are holding on way too tight—to the kids, to this house, to me. If me feeling like I should do my job leads us to wanting to strangle each other at 2 in the morning…I love you, but maybe you need to get out a bit more.”

And honestly? He was right.

So I spent the next day doing some serious soul-searching. Back to teaching? Subbing when I can? None of it felt exactly right. But in one of those fortunate social media moments, I happened to run across the Instagram page of a local gymnastics gym.

I took a shot, called them, and asked if maybe they were looking for a part-time coach in the evenings. The owner initially said no, but as we got to talking, it turned out I had actually competed against his daughter back in the early 2000s in Texas. That led to him wanting to meet me, then offering to basically create a spot a few days a week coaching his Xcel girls to give his wife a break.

I drove out that night and just like that—I had myself a job.

The first few weeks were absolutely amazing. I loved the gym, I loved the owners, I loved their family, I loved the girls I was working with, and I genuinely felt like we were making real progress.

Until I forgot that I am not, in fact, still 17 years old.

One of the girls was just on the cusp of getting a round-off back handspring and apparently my brain decided: sure, why wouldn’t I demonstrate a skill I haven’t thrown in at least five years? And the last time I did it I was drunk on a beach in Destin.

I hit my hands perfectly and then immediately felt white-hot pain explode through my left shoulder.

Thank God I managed to keep my composure in front of the girls. I speed-walked to the office with my dignity barely intact, but the second that door shut and the owner looked at me like the world’s most confused man—

I screamed what every woman born in the early 1990s, raised on feminism and the hopes of Hillary and Kamala, would naturally yell in a crisis:

“CALL MY HUSBAND!”

Followed immediately by collapsing into sobbing heaps on the floor.

The pain was excruciating, so we decided I couldn’t wait for Bubs to drive over. While he got the kids situated with our friends, the gym owner’s wife drove me to the ER and Bubs met us there.

So to make an already beyond-long story as short as possible: the ER was only able to stabilize me in a sling, but they got me a stat appointment with an orthopedist, who was able to see me within the week along with MRIs and all the other fun stuff.

Turns out I have a pretty severe labrum tear.

The basic plan right now is physical therapy first, but even the doctor thinks the best-case scenario with therapy is probably just getting me stronger so recovery from the eventual surgery is a little easier. I messed myself up pretty badly.

So for the past several weeks, I’ve been walking around essentially one-armed trying to do daily life with a now 1-year-old baby. I can’t even begin to explain how much Abby and TJ have stepped up and started doing things without even being asked. My mom and older sister have also come out separately for a combined total of almost three weeks, which has been an absolute godsend.

And as always, I have a husband who—despite me being a total pain in the ass—works from home as often as he can to tend to his “one-winged bird,” which is what he’s taken to calling me.

I had originally planned on starting to wean Ashley, but I’ve kind of decided my brain can only handle one of us being miserable at a time. Also, oxytocin is apparently an incredible painkiller.

So with that, sitting down and typing with one arm and a few functioning fingers on the other has been pretty far from my mind since the injury happened. But today I got a bug up my butt and really wanted to get some stuff out.

And while I’ve definitely written longer blogs before, this one probably took the most effort to finish.

I’m supposed to meet with the doctor again after Memorial Day, where we’ll decide whether therapy is realistically enough or whether surgery is officially on the calendar.

So that’s my two-month update.

Couldn’t be more Dani if I tried.